NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1. J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Macmillan, 1936), p.383.

2. Life, 2 May 1955.

3. John Wood (ed.), A Nation Not Afraid: The Thinking of Enoch Powell, (Batsford, 1965), p.136. The lecture was delivered on 13 November 1964.

4. Ibid., p.137.

5. Conversation with Sir Mark Allen, 4 February 2012.

6. Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, or the Two Nations (Oxford World’s Classics edn, 2008), pp. 14–15.

7. Rex Collings (ed.), Reflections of a Statesman: The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell, (Bellew, 1991), pp.373–9. The speech was delivered to the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Centre on 20 April 1968.

8. The broadcast script is reproduced in Peter Hennessy, Muddling Through: Power, Politics and the Quality of Government in Postwar Britain, (Gollancz, 1996), pp.16–33.

9. Peter Hennessy and Caroline Anstey, Diminished Responsibility? The Essence of Cabinet Government, Strathclyde/Analysis Papers, No.2 (Department of Government, University of Strathclyde, 1991).

10. His biographer, Simon Heffer, argues that the St George’s Eve speech ‘embraces all the main themes’ that dominated Powell’s political life in the 1960s and 1970s. Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (Weidenfeld, 1998), p.334.

11. Wood (ed.), A Nation Not Afraid, pp.144–5.

12. I am grateful to my friend John Alderdice, Convenor of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, for bringing Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘The Cure at Troy’ to my attention.

13. Conversation with Steve Kelly, 30 October 2011; Stephen F. Kelly, You’ve Never Had It So Good: Recollections of Life in the 1950s (History Press, 2012), chapter 8, ‘A “Success Story Nation”,’ pp.201–23.

14. Anthony Trollope, The Prime Minister (Chapman & Hall, 1876) (Trollope Society/Folio edn, 1991), p.605.

15. Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape, 2011), p.60. I am grateful to Sean Magee for bringing this passage to my attention.

16. Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus, chapter 1, section 4. I am grateful to Dr Stuart Aveyard of the School of History and Anthropology at Queen’s University, Belfast, for including this in his PhD thesis ‘No Solution: British Government Policy in Northern Ireland under Labour 1974–79’ (2010) as I had not encountered it before.

17. Keith Thomas, The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England (OUP, 2009), p.2.

18. Keith Jeffery and Peter Hennessy, States of Emergency: British Governments and Strikebreaking since 1919 (Routledge, 1983).

19. Norman St John-Stevas (ed.), The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot, Volume Three (The Economist, 1968), p.277. The concept appears in Bagehot’s obituary of Lord Palmerston in The Economist, 21 October 1865.

CHAPTER ONE

1. Donald M. Frame (translator), The Complete Works of Montaigne: Essays, Volume II (Hamish Hamilton, undated), p.304. I am grateful to Ned Pennant-Rea for bringing this essay to my attention.

2. Ibid., pp.303–4.

3. The Times, 29 March 1947.

4. Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (Secker and Warburg, 1989), pp.152–4.

5. Social Insurance and Allied Services, Cmd 6404 (HMSO, 1942).

6. The fruits of the programme took written form in Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Preparing for the Worst 1945–2010 (Penguin, 2010), chapter 8, ‘The Human Button: Deciders and Deliverers’, pp.310–59.

7. Abbot Parry OSB (translator), The Rule of St Benedict (Gracewing, 1990).

8. The National Archives, Public Record Office, CAB 130/16, GEN 163, 1st Meeting, 8 January 1947. See also Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (British Academy/OUP, 2007), pp.36–59.

9. Ibid., p.69; House of Commons, Official Report, 12 May 1948, col.2117 (HMSO, 1948).

10. ‘Communist MP Sees Atom Secrets’, Chapman Pincher, Daily Express, 13 May 1948.

11. Peter Hennessy, What the Papers Never Said (Portcullis Press, 1985), pp.24–7.

12. Chapman Pincher, Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders and Cover-Ups: Six Decades of Espionage, (Mainstream, 2011), pp.628–42.

13. House of Commons, Official Report, 20 December 1956, col.1493.

14. Bernard Crick, The Reform of Parliament (Weidenfeld, 1964).

15. Martin Gilbert, Never Despair: Winston S. Churchill 1945–1965, (Heinemann, 1988), p.1354.

16. Crick, The Reform of Parliament. See chapter 9, ‘What Is to Be Done?’ pp.192–203.

17. Anthony Sampson, Anatomy of Britain Today (Hodder, 1965). The first of the line appeared as Anatomy of Britain, (Hodder, 1962); the last as Who Runs This Place? The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century (John Murray, 2004).

18. Peter Hennessy, ‘Foreword’ in Anthony Sampson, The Anatomist: The Autobiography of Anthony Sampson (Politico’s, 2008).

19. Ibid.

CHAPTER TWO

1. ‘Paul Samuelson’, obituary, The Times, 14 December 2009.

2. J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Macmillan, 1936), p.383.

3. Lord Rothschild, Meditations of a Broomstick (Collins, 1977), p.171.

4. Gabriel Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy (Harcourt Brace, 1950), p.138.

5. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Vintage, 1966), p.12.

6. Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Intelligence within BAOR and NATO’s Northern Army Group’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol.31, No.1, February 2008, p.112; Keith Jeffrey, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909–1949 (Bloomsbury, 2010), p.665.

7. Paul Addison, No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Post-War Britain (OUP, 2010), pp.1–2.

8. See the photograph of the Queen with Harold Wilson at Balmoral in Philip Ziegler, Wilson: The Authorised Life of Lord Wilson of Rievaulx (Weidenfeld,1993), between pages 146 and 147.

9. Conversation with Lord Bragg of Wigton, 8 August 2011.

10. Anthony Kenny, A New History of Western Philosophy (OUP, 2011), p.xvi.

11. I think this line was argued by the great French historical sociologist Raymond Aron.

12. Kenny, A New History of Western Philosophy, p.ix.

13. Winston Churchill, Great Contemporaries (Thornton Butterworth, 1937), p.72.

14. Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers (Free Press, 1986).

15. Ibid., chapter 14, pp.247–70, which bears this title.

16. Jonathan Steinberg, Bismarck: A Life (OUP, 2011).

17. A. J. P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman (Hamish Hamilton, 1955), p.35.

18. Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Otto von Bismarck, Master Statesman’, New York Times, 31 March 2011.

19. Neustadt and May, Thinking in Time, p.251.

20. Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors, HC 898 (Stationery Office, 14 July 2004).

21. ‘What’s Wrong with Government?’ Royal College of Defence Studies seminar, 7 April 2011.

CHAPTER THREE

1. Lord Hurd was speaking on a panel, of which the author was also a member, at a meeting of the Cambridge University Land Society in the Travellers’ Club, Pall Mall. It was a ‘Chatham House Rules’ occasion but Lord Hurd has given me permission to quote him.

2. Ibid.

3. Private information.

4. Rt Hon. William Hague MP, ‘The Best Diplomatic Service in the World: Strengthening the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as an Institution’, Locarno Rooms, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 8 September 2011.

5. Geoffrey Moorhouse, The Diplomats: The Foreign Office Today (Jonathan Cape, 1977), pp.3–4.

6. Philip Collins, ‘The speech: What he said and what he meant’, The Times, 6 October 2011.

7. Vice Admiral Style has given me permission to attribute his remarks.

8. Securing Britain in An Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review, Cm 7948 (Stationery Office, October 2010).

9. A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The National Security Strategy, Cm 7953 (Stationery Office, 19 October 2010), pp.9–10.

10. Rosebery was speaking at the City of London Liberal Club on 5 May 1899. Antony Jay (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations (OUP, 1996), p.312.

11. Ibid. The rectoral address was delivered on 16 November 1900.

12. Peter Hennessy, ‘The Itch after the Amputation? The purposes of British Intelligence as the Century Turns: An Historical Perspective and a Forward Look’, in K. G. Robertson (ed.), War, Resistance and Intelligence: Essays in Honour of M. R. D. Foot (Leo Cooper, 1999), p.228.

13. Charles de Gaulle, War Memoirs Volume One: The Call to Honour, 1940–1942 (Collins, 1955), p.9.

14. He has used this image in conversations with the author.

15. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, ‘Freedom, Order and Shifting Sands’, St Michael and St George Lecture, Locarno Rooms, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 22 June 2011. I am grateful to Sir Jeremy for sending me a copy.

16. Quoted in Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War: 1890–1914 (Hamish Hamilton, 1966), p.31.

17. The National Archives/Public Record Office, CAB 131/7, DO (49) 48, ‘The Size and Shape of the Armed Forces: The Harwood Report’, 21 June 1949.

18. TNA, PRO, DEFE 5/40, COS (52) 361,, ‘Chiefs of Staff Report on Defence Policy and Global Strategy’, 15 July 1952.

19. Defence: Outline of Future Policy, Cm 124 (HMSO, April 1957).

20. Statement on the Defence Estimates 1965, Cm 2592 (HMSO, February 1965).

21. House of Commons, Official Report, 16 January 1968, cols 577–620.

22. Statement on the Defence Estimates 1975, Cm 5976 (HMSO, March 1975).

23. The United Kingdom Defence Programme: The Way Forward, Cm 8288 (HMSO, June 1981).

24. Options for Change (HMSO, 25 July 1990).

25. Front Line First: The Defence Costs Study (HMSO, 1994).

26. The Strategic Defence Review, (Stationery Office, July 1998); Delivering Security in a Changing World, Cm 6041 (Stationery Office, 2002).

27. House of Commons Defence Committee, The Strategic Defence and Security Review and the National Security Strategy, Sixth Report of Session 2010–12, HC 761 (Stationery Office, 3 August 2011), pp.3–12.

28. Private information.

29. TNA, PRO, CAB 129/100 FP (60) 1, ‘Future Policy Study 1960–70’, 24 February 1960. See also Peter Hennessy, Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties (Penguin, 2007), pp.576–95.

30. Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism (Macmillan, 1961), p.463.

31. He has used the distinction in conversation with the author.

32. Major-General Mungo Melvin, ‘Soldiers, Statesmen and Strategy’, Royal United Services Institute, 16 November 2011. See also House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, Who Does UK National Strategy? First Report of Session 2010–11, HC 435 (Stationery Office, 18 October 2010).

33. Central Organisation for Defence, Cmnd 476 (HMSO, July 1958)

34. TNA, PRO, DEFE 7/1898, ‘The Higher Direction of Defence’, 20 February 1963.

35. The plan was laid out in The Central Organisation for Defence, Cmnd 2097 (HMSO, July 1963).

36. The Central Organisation of Defence, Cmnd 9315 (HMSO, July 1984).

37. Defence Reform: An Independent Report into the Structure and Management of the Ministry of Defence (Stationery Office, June 2011).

38. TNA, PRO, PREM 11/2688, ‘Reorganisation of Central Machinery for Politico-Military Planning Intelligence’, Trend to Wilson, 13 March 1967; Trend to Wilson, 20 July 1967.

39. Report of the Committee on Representational Services Overseas (HMSO, 1964).

40. Report of the Review Committee on Overseas Representation 1968–1969 (HMSO, 1969).

41. Review of Overseas Representation: Report by the Central Policy Review Staff (HMSO, August 1977).

42. Peter Ackroyd, Venice: Pure City (Vintage, 2010), p.384.

43. Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (Public Affairs, 2004).

44. See George Robertson’s ‘Introduction’ to The Strategic Defence Review, July 1998.

45. Conversation with Sir Kevin Tebbit, 30 April 2011.

46. Hague, ‘The Best Diplomatic Service in the World’.

47. William Le Queux, The Invasion of 1910: With a Full Account of the Siege of London (Eveleigh Nash, 1906).

48. Philip Larkin, ‘Aubade’, in Archie Burnett (ed.), Philip Larkin: The Complete Poems, (Faber, 2012), pp.115–16

CHAPTER FOUR

1. I am very grateful to the Trustees of the Michael Quinlan Memorial Lecture, the former Lord Speaker, Baroness Hayman and the Mile End Group for the invitation to deliver a lecture on ‘Cabinets and the Bomb’ at the House of Lords on 2 February 2011 which gave me a platform for an earlier version of this chapter and a hugely knowledgeable audience on which to try it out. Ronald Knox, God and the Atom (Sheed and Ward, 1945), p.9.

2. Evelyn Waugh, The Life of Ronald Knox (Chapman and Hall, 1959), p.303.

3. TNA, PRO, CAB 134/940, HDC (55) 3, ‘The Defence Implications of Fall-out from a Hydrogen Bomb: Report by a Group of Officials’, 8 March 1955.

4. See Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Preparing for the Worst, 1945–2010 (Penguin, 2010).

5. Ibid., chapter 7, ‘London Might Be Silenced: The Last Redoubt’, pp.258–309.

6. For a reconstruction of the simulated countdown aboard HMS Vanguard that day see ibid., chapter 8, ‘The Human Button: Deciders and Deliverers’, especially pp.343–5.

7. TNA, PRO, CAB 130/3, GEN 75/1, ‘The Atomic Bomb: Memorandum by the Prime Minister’, 28 August 1945. See Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (British Academy/OUP, 2007), pp.36–8.

8. Hennessy, The Secret State: Preparing for the Worst, 1945–2010, p.80.

9. A. J. P. Taylor, War by Time-Table: How the First World War Began (Macdonald 1969), p.121.

10. Professor Nye was speaking at a seminar in Moscow. See Gordon S. Barrass, The Great Cold War: A Journey Through the Hall of Mirrors (Stanford University Press, 2009), pp.373–4.

11. Reginald Maudling, Memoirs (Sidgwick and Jackson, 1978), pp.113–18; Edmund Dell, The Chancellors: A History of the Chancellors of the Exchequer, 1945–90 (HarperCollins, 1996), pp.290–98.

12. Conversation with Lord Stockton, 13 April 2011.

13. Conversation with Rear Admiral Simon Lister, 15 August 2011.

14. Sir Michael left an enduring testament to his special feel for the nuclear weapons question with his Thinking About Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects (OUP, 2009).

15. Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (British Academy/OUP, 2007).

16. Downing Street Press Briefing, afternoon 4 December 2006, ‘Press Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Trident’. http://www.number10. gov.uk/output/page10534.asp

17. The Future of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Deterrent, Cm 6994 (Stationery Office, 4 December 2006).

18. Michael Quinlan, ‘Introduction’ in Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, p.ix.

19. See Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, pp.36–59. The key documents are TNA, PRO, CAB 130/3, ‘The Atomic Bomb: Memorandum by the Prime Minister’, GEN 75/1, 28 August 1945; TNA, PRO, CAB 130/2, GEN 75/8th Meeting, 18 December 1945; ibid., GEN 75/15th Meeting, 25 October 1946; TNA, PRO, CAB 130/16, GEN 163/1st Meeting, 8 January 1947.

20. House of Commons, Official Report, 12 May 1948, col.2117 (HMSO, 1948).

21. See Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, pp.167–209. See especially TNA, PRO, CAB 130/212, ‘Atlantic Nuclear Force’, MISC 16/1st Meeting, 11 November 1964; TNA, PRO, CAB 130/213, MISC 17/7, ‘Atlantic Nuclear Force: The Size of the British Polaris Force’, 20 November 1964; ibid., MISC 17/3rd Meeting, ‘Defence Policy’, 21 November 1964; ibid., MISC 17/4th Meeting, ‘Defence Policy’, 22 November 1964; TNA, PRO, CAB 128/39, CC(64) 11th conclusions, 26 November 1964; TNA, PRO, CAB 148/18, OPD(65) 5th Meeting, 29 January 1965.

22. See Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, pp.256–81. See especially TNA, PRO, PREM 15/2038, M/17/2, ‘Defence Expenditure, Minutes of a Meeting held at 10 Downing Street on … 30 October 1973’. ‘Chevaline was a two-stage missile carrying three nuclear warheads … on a platform known as a bus. The bus was a very sophisticated space vehicle equipped with small jets which could change its orientation so that each of the three warheads could be released on a different trajectory … The bus also carried a variety of penetration aids and decoys to offer so many indistinguishable targets that an opposing ABM system [the anti ballistic missile screen around the Moscow region codenamed GALOSH] would be overwhelmed attempting to deal with them all.’ ‘Peter Jones’, obituary, The Times, 18 November 2010.

23. See Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, pp.285–322. See especially TNA, PRO, CAB 128/55, CC(74) 47th conclusions, 20 November 1974.

24. See Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, pp.326–8. See also TNA, PRO, CAB 130/1109, ‘Cabinet Nuclear Policy Committee’, MISC 7 (79) 1st Meeting, 24 May 1979; 2nd Meeting, 10 July 1979; 3rd Meeting, 19 September 1979; 4th Meeting, 5 December 1979; TNA, PRO, CAB 130/1129, MISC 7 (80) 1st Meeting, 2 June 1980.

25. Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes, 3 July 1958, Cmnd 470 (HMSO, July 1958). It is reproduced in Jenifer Mackby and Paul Cornish (eds), US-UK Nuclear Cooperation After 50 Years (CSIS Press, 2008), pp.371–82.

26. Sir Hermann was speaking in A Bloody Union Jack on Top of It, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, May 1988. The transcript of the programme is reproduced in Peter Hennessy, Muddling Through: Power, Politics and the Quality of Government in Postwar Britain (Gollancz, 1996), pp.99–129. The Bondi quote is on p.128.

27. House of Commons Defence Committee, Strategic Nuclear Weapons Policy, 4th Report, Session 1980–81, HC 36 (HMSO, 1981). Michael Quinlan gave evidence to it on 29 October and 4 November 1980.

28. Defence Open Government Document 80/23 (Ministry of Defence, July 1980).

29. For the most recent government statement see Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review, Cm 7948 (Stationery Office, October 2010), pp.38–9.

30. Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, p.viii.

31. Sir Michael Perrin recalling the meeting and its aftermath on BBC2 Timewatch, 29 September 1982. See Peter Hennessy, ‘How Bevin saved Britain’s Bomb’, The Times, 30 September 1982.

32. TNA, PRO, CAB 130/2, GEN 75/15th Meeting, 25 October 1946.

33. Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, pp.87–125. The full Cabinet discussed the H-bomb three times: TNA, PRO, CAB 128/27 CC(54) 47th conclusions, 7 July 1954; ibid., CC(54) 48th conclusions, 8 July 1954; ibid., CC(54) 53rd conclusions, 26 July 1954.

34. Hennessy, Muddling Through, pp.105–6.

35. Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, pp.105–11; TNA, PRO, CAB 129/69, C(54) 249, ‘United Kingdom Defence Policy. Memorandum by the Chiefs of Staff’, 31 May 1954.

36. Labour’s election manifesto, The New Britain, claimed: ‘The [1962] Nassau Agreement to buy Polaris know-how and Polaris missiles from the USA will add nothing to the deterrent strength of the western alliance, and it will mean utter dependence on the US for their supply. Nor is it true that all this costly defence expenditure will produce an “independent British deterrent”. It will not be independent and it will not be British and it will not deter.’ The manifesto went on to pledge: ‘We shall propose the re-negotiation of the Nassau agreement.’ Iain Dale (ed.), Labour Party General Election Manifestos, 1900–1997, (Routledge/Politico’s, 2000), pp.123–4.

37. Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, pp.167–72. TNA, PRO, CAB 130/212, MISC 16, 1st Meeting, ‘Atlantic Nuclear Force’, 11 November 1964.

38. Ibid.

39. Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, pp.197–201. TNA, PRO, CAB 128/39, CC(64) 11th conclusions, 26 November 1964.

40. Hennessy, Muddling Through, p.115.

41. Sir Kevin was speaking at a RUSI seminar on ‘Cabinets and the Bomb’, 2 September 2009.

42. Quinlan, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons, p.30.

43. Cm 6994, p.5.

44. Sir Frank advanced this argument with me in conversation.

45. Tony Blair, A Journey (Hutchinson, 2010), pp.635–6.

46. Quoted in Matthew Parris, ‘House of Lords Library Note … Prospects for Nuclear Disarmament and Strengthening Non-Proliferation’ (House of Lords, 15 January 2010), p.8. Mr Brown delivered his speech in New York on 24 September 2009.

47. Private information.

48. TNA, PRO, PREM 11/565, ‘Events Leading up to the Use of the Atomic Bomb, 1945’, Cherwell to Churchill, 29 January 1953.

49. The Coalition, Our Programme for Government: Freedom, Fairness, Responsibility, p.15.

50. Private information.

51. Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review, (Stationery Office, October 2010).

52. Ibid., p.38.

53. Ibid.

54. Dr Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence, Written Answer, House of Commons, Official Report, 3 December 2010, col.1061.

55. Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty, p.39.

56. Private information.

57. Private information.

58. Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence, House of Commons, Official Report, 18 May 2011.

59. The United Kingdom’s Future Nuclear Deterrent: The Submarine Initial Gate Parliamentary Report (Ministry of Defence, 18 May 2011).

60. Ibid., p.5.

61. Ibid., p.6.

62. Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb, p.343. Sir Michael Quinlan in conversation with Sir John Willis and the author, National Archives, Kew, 6 May 2004.

63. Sir Lawrence was delivering the vote of thanks after my Liddell Hart Lecture at King’s College London on 1 November 2011.

64. Jean Monnet, Memoirs (Collins, 1978), p.451.

65. Hennessy, The Secret State: Preparing for the Worst, 1945–2010, p.311, plus private information.

66. Private information.

CHAPTER FIVE

1. I delivered the bulk of this chapter as the Sir Timothy Garden Lecture 2011 at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs on 23 June 2011. I am very grateful to Sir Tim’s widow Sue, Baroness Garden of Frognal, for her permission to include it in Distilling the Frenzy (letter from Baroness Garden, 15 September 2011). Much of the text was originally published in INTERLIB, journal of the Liberal International British Group, No.2, 2011, pp.4–8. Michael Quinlan, ‘Shaping the Defence Programme: Some Platitudes’, 1 December 2008, unpublished paper in Sir Michael Quinlan’s private archive. I am very grateful to Lady Quinlan for her permission to quote from it.

2. Antony Jay (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations (OUP, 1996), p.372.

3. Fernand Braudel, A History of Civilizations, (Penguin edn, 1995), pp.xxxvii–xxxviii.

4. Mary Douglas, How Institutions Think (Routledge, 1987), pp.21, 25.

5. Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5 (Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 2009), pp.27–8; TNA, PRO, CAB 16/232, Conclusion of Committee of Imperial Defence Sub-Committee, April 1909; CAB 2/12 CID (103), 24 July 1909; CAB 161/8, Report and Proceedings of CID Sub-Committee.

6. Franklyn Arthur Johnson, Defence by Committee: The British Committee of Imperial Defence 1885–1959 (OUP, 1960), pp.65, 71, 92, 97, 120–32.

7. Hew Strachan, The First World War, Volume I: To Arms (OUP, 2001), p.25.

8. Johnson, Defence by Committee, p.131.

9. Keith Jeffery and Peter Hennessy, States of Emergency: British Governments and Strikebreaking since 1919 (Routledge, 1983), pp.10–39.

10. The 1920 Act is reproduced as Appendix I in ibid., pp.270–72.

11. Ibid., pp.102–29.

12. Ibid., pp.32–3.

13. House of Commons, Official Report, 12 November 1919, col.143.

14. Johnson, Defence by Committee, pp.192–3; Report of the Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence on National and Imperial Defence [Salisbury Committee], Cmd. 2029 (HMSO, 1924).

15. David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald (Jonathan Cape, 1977), p.523.

16. F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, Volume I (HMSO, 1979), p.36.

17. Ibid., p.37.

18. Percy Cradock, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World (John Murray, 2002), p.12.

19. Ibid., p.298.

20. Noel Annan, Changing Enemies: The Defeat and Regeneration of Germany (HarperCollins, 1995); Cradock, Know Your Enemy, pp.12–14.

21. See Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders since 1945 (Penguin, 2001), pp.329, 554; TNA, PRO, PREM 13/2688, ‘Reorganisation of Central Machinery for Politico-Military Planning and Intelligence’, 1967–1968, Trend to Wilson, 13 March 1967.

22. Social Insurance and Allied Services, Report by Sir William Beveridge, Cmd. 6404 (HMSO, 1942), p.6.

23. Ibid.

24. Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (Granada, 1971), p.609.

25. TNA, PRO, T 236 (no piece number), Rowe-Dutton to Eady, 26 January 1948.

26. Peter Hennessy, Never Again: Britain 1945–51 (Penguin, 2006), p.370.

27. For the fullest and most up-to-date survey of this see Michael S. Goodman, Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb (Stanford University Press, 2007).

28. See Catherine Haddon, ‘Union Jacks and Red Stars on Them: UK Intelligence, the Soviet Nuclear Threat and British Nuclear Weapons Policy, 1945–70’, unpublished PhD thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2008.

29. Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (British Academy/OUP, 2007), p.331.

30. Private information.

31. Peter Hennessy, Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties (Penguin, 2007), pp.573–95.

32. TNA, PRO, CAB 129/100, FP (60) 1, 24 February 1960, ‘Future Policy Study 1960–70’.

33. TNA, PRO, CAB 134/1929, FP (60) 1st Meeting, 23 March 1960; Hennessy, Having It So Good, pp.591–2.

34. Private information.

35. TNA, PRO, PREM 15/927, ‘Review of Government Strategy by CPRS: Meetings of Ministers to Discuss Strategy in Economic and Foreign Affairs, Part 3’, Rothschild to Heath, 18 July 1972.

36. Jon Davis, Prime Ministers and Whitehall 1960–1974 (Hambledon Continuum, 2007), pp.121–4.

37. TNA, PRO, CAB 184/57, ‘International Oil Questions’, Rothschild to William Armstrong, 21 September 1971. I am very grateful to my research student, Rosaleen Hughes, for steering me through the thickets of energy policy and the CPRS during the Heath years.

38. TNA, PRO, CAB 184/58. Rothschild to Heath, 27 April 1972.

39. TNA, PRO, CAB 134/3607, ES (73) 18, An Energy Policy for Britain: A Report by the Central Policy Review Staff, 9 May 1973.

40. TNA, PRO, CAB 134/3609, ES (73) 35, Ministerial Committee on Economic Strategy, ‘First Report from the Task Force on Oil Supplies: Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Defence’, July 1973.

41. Leonardo Maugeri, The Age of Oil: The Mythology, History, and Future of the World’s Most Controversial Resource (Praeger, 2006), p.112.

42. Ibid., p.114.

43. I recall him saying that at the time.

44. King, ‘Finance: A Return from Risk’.

45. Sir Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change (HM Treasury, 30 October 2006).

46. The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007–2036, 3rd edn (Ministry of Defence, 2007), p.xiii.

47. National Risk Register (Cabinet Office, 2008), p.5. I owe my appreciation of this omission to Sir David Omand, former Co-ordinator of Security and Intelligence in the Cabinet Office.

48. Conversation with Sir Richard Mottram, 23 February 2009.

49. The DCDC Strategic Trends Programme: Global Strategic Trends out to 2040, p.95; for a summer 2011 analysis of the state of fusion research see ‘Fusion power: next ITERation’, The Economist, 3 September 2011, pp.72–3.

50. The 22 July 2009 letter is reproduced in British Academy Review, Issue 14, November 2009, pp.8–10.

51. The 8 February 2010 letter is reproduced in British Academy Review, Issue 15, March 2010.

52. Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour 1920–1937 (Macmillan, 1992), p.401.

53. Lord Rees of Ludlow, ‘The Next Half-Century: A Scientist’s Hopes and Fears’, 2008 Ditchley Foundation Lecture, 12 July 2008 (Ditchley Foundation, 2008), p.1.

54. Lord Rees of Ludlow, ‘The World in 2050’, The Lord Speaker’s Mile End Group Lecture 2009, House of Lords, 18 June 2009.

55. Ibid.

56. Charles Clarke, ‘Inaugural Lecture… as Visiting Professor of Politics at the University of East Anglia’, 20 January 2011.

57. John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps, first published 1915 (Penguin edn, The Complete Richard Hannay, 1992), p.2.

58. Sarah Bakewell, How To Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (Vintage, 2011), p.29.

CHAPTER SIX

1. William Hague, ‘Securing our Future: The Role of Secret Intelligence in Foreign Policy’, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 16 November 2011.

2. Ibid.

3. The National Archives, Public Record Office, CAB 158/30, JIC (57) 101, ‘Terms of reference for the Joint Intelligence Committee’, P. H. Dean, 1 October 1957. See also Peter Hennessy, Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties (Penguin, 2007), pp.487–9; Percy Cradock, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World (John Murray, 2002), p.262.

4. TNA, PRO, PREM 13/2688, ‘Reorganisation of Central Machinery for Politico-military Planning and Intelligence, 1967–1968’.

5. A Resilient Nation: National Security – The Conservative Approach (Conservative Party, January 2010).

6. Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Preparing for the Worst, 1945–2010 (Penguin, 2010), p.384.

7. Cradock, Know Your Enemy, pp.12–13; F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War (abridged edn, HMSO, 1993), p.8.

8. The Cabinet Office has kindly supplied me with a summary of the ‘key recommendations’ of the Rimmer-Martin Report, Supporting the National Security Council (NSC): The Central National Security and Intelligence Machinery (Cabinet Office, 2011).

9. Hague, ‘Securing Our Future’, and Sir Peter Ricketts, IISS Seminar on the National Security Council, 30 November 2011.

10. House of Lords, Official Report, 12 December 2011, GC 259.

11. Private information.

12. Hennessy, The Secret State, p.382.

13. Private information.

14. Sir Percy liked to describe the JIC in these terms when talking to my students on the ‘Cabinet, Premiership and the Conduct of Central Government’ course at Queen Mary, University of London in the 1990s. See also his In Pursuit of British Interests: Reflections on Foreign Policy under Margaret Thatcher and John Major (John Murray, 1997), p.40.

15. Private information.

16. Private information.

17. Private information.

18. Private information.

19. Private information.

20. Supporting the National Security Council.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors, HC 898 (HMSO, 2004), pp.7–16.

24. Supporting the National Security Council.

25. House of Lords, Official Report, 12 December 2011, GC 259–60.

26. Matt Lyus and Peter Hennessy, Tony Blair, Past Prime Ministers, Parliament and the Use of Military Force, Strathclyde Papers on Government and Politics, No.113 (Department of Government, University of Strathclyde, 1999); Colin Seymour-Ure, ‘British “War Cabinets” in Limited Wars: Korea, Suez and the Falklands’, Public Administration, Vol. 62 (Summer 1984), pp.181–200; Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders since 1945 (Penguin, 2001), chapter 6, pp.102–47.

27. Anthony Trollope, The Prime Minister (Chapman & Hall, 1876) (Trollope Society/Folio Society edn, 1991), p.603.

28. House of Commons, Official Report, 1 December 2011, ‘Libya Crisis’, Written Statement, 75 WS.

29. Sir Peter Rickett, Libya Crisis: National Security Adviser’s Review of Central Co-ordination and Lessons Learned (Cabinet Office, 1 December 2011).

30. Ibid., p.7.

31. See Eliot A. Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (Free Press, 2002).

32. Ricketts, Libya Crisis, p.19.

33. Ibid., p.31.

34. Ibid., p.6.

35. International Institute of Strategic Studies seminar, 30 November 2011.

CHAPTER SEVEN

1. W. E. Gladstone, Gleanings of Past Years, Vol. 1 (John Murray, 1879), p.245.

2. In fact, Attlee’s words were slightly different. At a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1954, Attlee doodled his way through a long and impassioned speech about the perils of the H-bomb from the eloquent Welsh MP Harold Davies. When he finally subsided, Attlee removed the pipe from his mouth, put down his pen and said: ‘We’ll watch it; meeting adjourned.’ Douglas Jay, Change and Fortune: A Political Record (Hutchinson, 1980), p.237.

3. Winston S. Churchill, Great Contemporaries (Thornton Butterworth, 1937), pp.137–40.

4. John Grigg, Lloyd George: From Peace to War 1912–1916 (Methuen, 1985), p.474.

5. Peter Hennessy, Cabinets and the Bomb (British Academy/OUP, 2007), pp.128–47.

6. Macmillan diary, entry for 17 February 1963. Western Manuscripts Division, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

7. Conversation with Dr Paul Addison, 19 April 2011.

8. Ernest Gellner, Anthropology and Politics: Revolutions in the Sacred Grove, (Blackwell, 1995), chapter 7, ‘James Frazer and Cambridge Anthropology’, pp.102–17.

9. J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 3 vols (Macmillan, 1890–1900), Vol. 1, pp.1–2.

10. House of Lords, Official Report, 3 December 2010, col. 1707.

11. Lord Attlee, ‘What Sort of Man Gets to the Top?’ Observer, 7 February 1960, reproduced in Frank Field (ed.), Attlee’s Great Contemporaries: The Politics of Character (Continuum, 2009), pp.103–8.

12. Anthony Trollope, The Prime Minister (Chapman & Hall, 1876) (Trollope Society/Folio Society edn, 1991), p.567.

13. Ibid., p.603.

14. Peter Hennessy, The Hidden Wiring: Unearthing the British Constitution (Gollancz, 1995), p.165. See also footnote 26 on p.241 of that book.

15. Ibid., p.92.

16. Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Otto von Bismarck, Master Statesman’, New York Times, 31 March 2011.

17. Churchill, Great Contemporaries, p.137.

18. The Cabinet Manual: A Guide to Laws, Conventions and Rules on the Operation of Government (1st edn, Cabinet Office, October 2011).

19. TNA, PRO, CAB 21/1638, ‘Function of the Prime Minister and His Staff, 1947–1948’.

20. B. W. Hill, Sir Robert Walpole: ‘Sole and Prime Minister’ (Hamish Hamilton, 1989), Chapter 8, ‘Cutting Each Other’s Throats’, pp. 191–225.

21. R. J. Q. Adams, Balfour: The Last Grandee (John Murray, 2007).

22. Private information.

23. For the thinking behind this see the White Paper Central Organisation for Defence, Cmd 6923 (HMSO, October 1946).

24. Sidney Low, The Governance of England (Fisher Unwin, 1904), p.12.

25. Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War (Jonathan Cape, 1992), p.629.

26. Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders since 1945 (Penguin, 2001), pp.60–2.

27. TNA, PRO, CAB 16/8, ‘Report and Proceedings of the Committee of Imperial Defence appointed to consider the Question of Foreign Espionage in the United Kingdom’, 24 July 1909.

28. House of Lords, Official Report, 25 July 1911, cols 641–7; House of Commons, Official Report, 18 August 1911, cols 2251–60.

29. Hennessy, The Prime Minister, p.68.

30. Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, 2011.

31. Franklyn Arthur Johnson, Defence by Committee: The British Committee of Imperial Defence 1885–1959 (OUP, 1960), pp.65, 71, 92, 97.

32. Hennessy, The Prime Minister, pp.170–71.

33. Sir Hugh MacKenzie, The Sword of Damocles (Allen Sutton, 1995), p.201.

34. Jonathon Coe and Richard Kelly, ‘Prime Ministers Questions, House of Commons Standard Library Note,’ 6 October 2009, p.3.

35. Ibid., pp.4–5.

36. Private information.

37. The first of Mr Blair’s appearances before the Liaison Committee took place on 16 July 2002.

38. House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, http://www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpolcon/writev/842/m2.htm

39. Andrew Blick and Peter Hennessy, The Hidden Wiring Emerges: The Cabinet Manual and the Working of the British Constitution (IPPR, August 2011).

40. Draft Cabinet Manual (Cabinet Office, December 2010).

41. Hennessy, The Secret State: Preparing for the Worst 1945–2010, p.389.

42. House of Commons, Official Report, 17 March 1914.

43. Anthony Trollope, The Duke’s Children (Chapman & Hall, 1880), (OUP, 1954), p.1.

44. Private information.

CHAPTER EIGHT

1. Fred R. Shapiro (ed.), The Yale Book of Quotations, (Yale University Press, 2006), p.86.

2. Quoted in Jonathan Steinberg, Bismarck: A Life (OUP, 2011), pp.193–4.

3. Shapiro (ed.), The Yale Book of Quotations, p.86.

4. Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (Fontana, 1963 edn; the red-covered paperback I used when I first fell under the Bagehotian spell at St John’s College, Cambridge in 1966).

5. Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Markets (H. S. King, 1873) (Wiley edn, 1999), p. 20.

6. W. E. Gladstone, Gleanings of Past Years, Vol.1 (John Murray, 1879), p.245.

7. Quoted in Sidney Low, The Governance of England (Fisher Unwin, 1904), p.221.

8. House of Lords Constitutional Committee, The Process of Constitutional Change 15th Report, Session 2010–12, HL 177 (Stationery Office, 2011).

9. House of Lords, Official Report, 7 December 2011, GC 167–8.

10. The coalition’s line was sustained by Lord Wallace of Saltaire when he replied to the Lords debate of 7 December 2011 on behalf of the government. House of Lords, Official Report, 7 December 2011, GC 196.

11. House of Commons, Official Report, 8 February 1960, col.70.

12. For what is still the liveliest account of the great constitutional crisis of 1909–11 see Roy Jenkins, Mr Balfour’s Poodle: An Account of the Struggle Between the House of Lords and the Government of Mr Asquith (Heinemann, 1954).

13. House of Lords, Official Report, 7 December 2011, GC 190.

14. The Process of Constitutional Change, CRP 14.

15. House of Lords, Official Report, 7 December 2011, GC 168.

16. Ibid., GC 190.

17. The Government Response to the House of Lords Constitution Committee Report ‘The Process of Constitutional Change’, Cm 8181 (Stationery Office, September 2011)

18. House of Lords, Official Report, 7 December 2011, GC 189.

19. Amy Baker, Prime Ministers and the Rule Book (Politico’s, 2000).

20. Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders since 1945 (Penguin, 2001), p.451.

21. Both these documents are reproduced as appendices in Baker, Prime Ministers and the Rule Book, pp.135–92.

22. Peter Hennessy, Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties (Penguin, 2007), chapter 9, pp.405–57.

23. Hennessy, The Prime Minister, pp.433–4.

24. Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors, HC 898 (Stationery Office, July 2004), see especially pp.146–8.

25. Enoch Powell, Joseph Chamberlain (Thames and Hudson, 1977), p.151.

26. Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell, (Weidenfeld, 1998), chapter 11, pp.449–508.

27. Enoch Powell, ‘Enoch Powell talks to Disraeli’, Sunday Times, 22 December 1963. I am very grateful to Richard Ritchie for bringing this quotation to my attention.

28. The essay is reproduced in Peter Davison (ed.), Orwell and Politics, (Penguin, 2001), pp.397–411.

29. Ibid., p.398.

30. Ibid., p.409.

31. I had my most recent stab at this in an address during ‘A Celebration of Advent’, organised by Christian Responsibility in Public Affairs at St Michael’s Church, Chester Square in London on 1 December 2011.

32. Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis: The Aftermath (Thornton Butterworth, 1929). Churchill called his opening chapter on the Armistice and after ‘The Broken Spell’, pp.17–31.

33. Anthony Trollope, The Prime Minister (Chapman & Hall, 1876) (Trollope Society/Folio Society edn, 1991), p.567.

34. Quoted in the diary of McCallum Scott, entry for 5 March 1917. See Paul Addison, ‘The Religion of Winston Churchill’ in Michael Bentley (ed.), Public and Private Doctrine: Essays in British History Presented to Maurice Cowling (CUP, 1993), p.245.

CHAPTER NINE

1. Sir Michael made this observation over lunch in the library of the mansion in Ditchley Park on 9 July 2011 shortly before the annual general meeting of the Ditchley Foundation.

2. Conversation with Alf Dubs, 15 February 2012. Lord Dubs has given me permission to quote him.

3. House of Lords House of Commons Minutes of Evidence Taken Before The Joint Committee On The Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, 30 January 2012, HC 1313–xv.

4. Roy Jenkins, Mr Balfour’s Poodle: An Account of the Struggle Between the House of Lords and the Government of Mr Asquith (Collins, 1954).

5. Freedom Fairness Responsibility: Our Programme for Government (Cabinet Office, May 2010).

6. Ibid.

7. Invitation to Join the Government of Britain: The Conservative Manifesto 2010 (Conservative Campaign Headquarters, 2010), p.67.

8. Change That Works for You: Building a Fairer Britain (Chris Fox/Liberal Democrats, 2010), p.88.

9. A Future Fair for All: The Labour Party Manifesto 2010 (Labour Party, 2010), p.94.

10. I heard him say it myself on a private occasion (he said his view was ‘no secret’).

11. Private information.

12. Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (1867; Fontana 1963 edn), pp.137, 149.

13. Adapted from Sir Walter Scott’s poem ‘Young Lochinvar out of the West’.

14. Nick Clegg interviewed by Jon Snow, Channel 4 News, 5 April 2011.

15. N. D. Kondratiev, ‘The Long Waves in Economic Life’, in Readings in Business Cycle Theory (Blakiston, 1944). The Marxist Kondratiev first advanced his theory in 1926. See David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1850 to the Present, (CUP, 1969), pp.232–3.

16. Aldous Huxley, Beyond the Mexique Bay (Chatto and Windus, 1934), p.83. Huxley wrote: ‘The commonest, one might call it the natural rhythm of life is routine punctuated by orgies.’

17. G. R. Searle, A New England? Peace and War 1886–1918 (OUP, 2004), pp.405–24.

18. Bernard Donoughue and G. W. Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (Weidenfeld, 1973), pp.429–31.

19. Jenkins, Mr Balfour’s Poodle, p.282.

20. Enoch Powell and Keith Wallis, The House of Lords in the Middle Ages: A History of the English House of Lords to 1540, (Weidenfeld, 1967), pp.1–11.

21. Letter from Lord Cunningham of Felling to the author, 5 March 2012.

22. Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, HC 1313–xv.

23. James Callaghan, Time and Chance (Collins, 1987), p.502.

24. House of Lords, Official Report, 3 December 2010, cols.1706–9.

25. Fact sheet produced by the House of Lords Appointments Commission for a House of Lords briefing on its work, 8 February 2012.

26. Ibid. Briefing Paper on ‘The Nomination and Assessment Process’.

27. Private information.

28. House of Lords Reform Draft Bill, Cm 8077 (Stationery Office, May 2011), pp.11–12.

29. Ibid., pp.5–6.

30. Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (Weidenfeld, 1998), pp.509–13, 517, 520–21.

31. Kenneth O. Morgan, Michael Foot: A Life (HarperPress, 2007), pp.259–61.

32. House of Lords Reform Draft Bill, p.11.

33. House of Lords, Official Report, 21 June 2011, col.1194.

34. Ibid., cols.1193–94.

35. Ibid., col.1194.

36. On 12 September 2011.

37. House of Lords House of Commons Minutes of Evidence Taken Before The Joint Committee on the Draft Lords Reform Bill, Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, 10 October 2011, HC 1313–1.

38. House of Commons, Official Report, 17 May 2011.

39. ‘Chamber Music’, unpublished diary on House of Lords Reform, entry for 17 May 2011.

40. House of Lords, Official Report, 16 May 2011, col. 1142.

41. House of Lords, Official Report, 17 May 2011, col.1277.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid., col. 1280.

44. ‘Chamber Music’, diary entry for 18 May 2011. Lord Peston has given me permission to quote him.

45. Peter Riddell, Parliament under Blair (Politico’s, 2000).

46. House of Lords House of Commons Oral Evidence Taken Before the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, 24 October 2011, HC 1313–iii.

47. Andrew Adonis, Parliament Today (Manchester University Press, 1993).

48. House of Lords House of Commons Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, 5 December 2011, HC 1313–x.

49. House of Lords House of Commons Joint Committee on Conventions, Conventions of the UK Parliament, HL Paper 265–1, HC 1212–1 (Stationery Office, 2006).

50. House of Lords House of Commons Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, 30 January 2012, HC 1313–xv.

51. House of Lords House of Commons Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, 10 October 2011, HC 1313–i.

52. House of Lords House of Commons Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, 23 January 2012, HC 1313–xiv.

53. Ibid.

54. Bill of Rights 1688, Article 9.

55. George Steiner, My Unwritten Books (Weidenfeld, 2008), p.137.

56. House of Lords, House of Commons, Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, 16 January 2012.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid.

59. Ibid.

60. HC 1313–iii.

61. HC 1313–x.

62. He did so in my hearing.

63. House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, Meeting with Nick Clegg MP, Deputy Prime Minister, 1 February 2012.

64. House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, Referendums in the United Kingdom, 12th Report of Session 2009–10, HL 99 (Stationery Office, 2010), p.27.

65. House of Lords Library Note, Public Attitudes Towards the House of Lords and House of Lords Reform, Ian Cruse, 11 November 2011.

66. Private information.

67. Roland Watson, ‘Tory Peers in revolt. Anger over Lords reform threatens coalition’s entire legislative programme’, The Times, 20 February 2012.

68. Dominic Grieve to Ivor Richard, 7 November 2011.

69. Iain Dale (ed.), Labour Party General Election Manifestos, 1900–1997 (Routledge/Politico’s, 2000), p.275.

70. David Butler, British General Elections since 1945 (Blackwell, 1989), p.37.

71. The National Archives, Public Record Office, CAB 134/4540, H (HL) (81) 2, ‘Protection of the House of Lords. Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Home Department’, 29 January 1981.

72. Ibid.

73. Ibid.

74. Ibid.

75. Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Bill. Written Evidence of Lord Goldsmith QC, EV 109.

76. House of Commons, Official Report, 3 April 1911, cols.1894–5.

77. Lord Pannick QC, Could the Parliament Act 1911 be used by the House of Commons to insist on reform of the House of Lords? Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Bill. Written Evidence of Lord Pannick QC.

78. Private information.

79. James Forsyth, ‘Irreconcilable Differences’, The Spectator, 25 February 2012.

80. Private information.

81. House of Commons Oral Evidence Taken Before The Public Administration Committee, Strategic Thinking in Government, 22 February 2012, Rt. Hon Oliver Letwin MP, HC 1625–iv.

CHAPTER TEN

1. Martin Gilbert, Never Despair: Winston S. Churchill 1945–1965 (Heinemann, 1988), p.835.

2. Winston S. Churchill, Great Contemporaries (Thornton Butterworth, 1937), pp.16–17.

3. Gilbert, Never Despair, p.835.

4. John Colville, The Churchillians, (Weidenfeld, 1981), p.121.

5. Gilbert, Never Despair, p.835.

6. Paul Addison, Churchill on the Home Front, 1900–1955 (Jonathan Cape, 1992), p.439.

7. Henry Pelling, Winston Churchill, (Macmillan, 1974), p.33. See also p.49.

8. John Ramsden, Man of the Century: Winston Churchill and His Legend since 1945 (HarperCollins, 2002).

9. Roy Jenkins, A Life at the Centre (Macmillan, 1991), p.57.

10. Roy Jenkins, Asquith (Collins, 1964).

11. Roy Jenkins, Mr Attlee: An Interim Biography (Heinemann, 1948).

12. Roy Jenkins, ‘Gladstone and Books’ in Peter Francis (ed.), The Grand Old Man: Speeches and Sermons in Honour of W. E. Gladstone (Monad Press, 2000), p.25.

13. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, second edn (OUP, 1968), p.209.

14. Quoted in John Lukacs, The Future of History (Yale, 2011), p.78.

15. Jenkins, Gallery of 20th Century Portraits, p.260.

16. Ibid., p.256.

17. Harold Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 1956–1959 (Macmillan, 1971), p.197.

18. D. R. Thorpe, Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan (Chatto, 2010), p.57.

19. Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (Constable, 1962).

20. Alistair Horne, Macmillan 1957–1986 (Macmillan, 1989), p.383.

21. Peter Catterall (ed.), The Macmillan Diaries Vol.II: Prime Minister and After 1957–1966 (Macmillan, 2011), p.510. Diary entry for 22 October 1962.

22. Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders since 1945 (Penguin, 2001), pp.129–30.

23. Ibid., p.130.

24. TNA, PRO, CAB 158/29, JIC (57) 62, ‘The Possibility of Hostilities short of Global War up to 1965’, 20 September 1957. I am grateful to Dr Alban Webb for bringing this assessment to my attention.

25. Quoted in Lukacs, The Future of History, p.4.

26. I have heard him quoted by Geoff Mulgan, author of Good and Bad Power: The Ideals and Betrayals of Government (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2006).

27. Churchill, Great Contemporaries, p.61.

28. Fernand Braudel, A History of Civilizations (Penguin edn, 1995), p.xxxviii.

29. This was a ‘Chatham House Rules’ occasion but Lord Butler has given me permission to cite him.

30. Ibid.

31. Hennessy, The Prime Minister, pp.228–47; the Butler Report, Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors, HC 898 (Stationery Office, 14 July 2004), p.160.

32. Sir Joseph Pilling, The Review of the Government’s History Programme (Cabinet Office, 2009 though not published until 2011).

33. I have discussed this with some of those involved.

34. Margaret Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy 1939–1945 (Macmillan, 1964); Margaret Gowing assisted by Lorna Arnold, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy 1945–1952, Volume 1 Policy-Making; Volume 2 Policy Execution (Macmillan, 1974).

35. Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (Allen Lane, Penguin Books, 2009); Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909–1949 (Bloomsbury, 2010).

36. Sir Lawrence Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign. Vol.I The Origins of the Falklands War; Vol.II War and Diplomacy (Routledge, 2005).

37. W. K. Hancock, Country and Calling (Faber, 1954), pp.196–7.

38. Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (Pimlico, 2001), p.139.

39. Churchill, Great Contemporaries, p.72.

40. Quoted in Lukacs, The Future of History, p.24.

41. William Hague, William Pitt the Younger: A Biography (HarperCollins, 2004).

42. William Hague, William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti–Slave Trade Campaigner (HarperPress, 2007).

43. Rt Hon. William Hague, MP, ‘The Best Diplomatic Service in the World: Strengthening the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as an Institution’, Locarno Rooms, FCO, 8 September 2011.

44. ‘Saturday interview’, ‘I’ve often been wrong, but I was absolutely right about the euro’, ‘Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson meeting William Hague’, The Times, 10 September 2011.

45. Hague, ‘The Best Diplomatic Service in the World’.

46. Ibid.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

1. The National Archives/Public Record Office, PREM 16/1858 ‘Security. Disclosure of Official Information; Francis and Younger Reports on Security and Privacy; White Paper on Official Information; Part 7.

2. For an account of the Agadir crisis see Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War (Jonathan Cape, 1992), chapter 39, ‘Agadir’, pp.715–43.

3. Home Office, Departmental Committee on Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911, Vol.1, Report of the Committee, Cmnd 5104 (HMSO, 1972).

4. Lord Hurd of Westwell speaking on One Hundred Years of Secrecy, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 16 August 2011.

5. Sir Bernard Ingham speaking on One Hundred Years of Secrecy.

6. TNA, PRO, PREM 19/357, ‘Security: Review of Adequacy of Leaks procedure’, Bancroft to Whitmore, 15 January 1980.

7. Ibid., Whitmore to Bancroft, 18 January 1980.

8. Ibid., Thatcher to Whitelaw, 4 August 1980.

9. Ibid., Ingham to Pattison, 21 July 1980.

10. TNA, PRO, CAB 175/36, ‘Cabinet Office Civil Emergencies Book July 1973’. I am grateful to Rosaleen Hughes for persuading the Cabinet Office to declassify this document in 2011.

11. Nicholas Wilkinson, Secrecy and the Media: The Office and History of the United Kingdom’s D-Notice System (Routledge, 2009)

12. Keith Jeffery and Peter Hennessy, States of Emergency: British Governments and Strikebreaking since 1919 (Routledge, 1983).

13. TNA, PRO, HO 322/778, ‘Relations with the Press: Open Government Issues; Peter Hennessy’s Articles on Civil Defence in “The Times”, November 1979’, Sir Frank Cooper to Sir Robert Armstrong, 2 November 1979; Armstrong to John Chilcot, 12 November 1979. My articles ran as ‘Whitehall brief’ columns between 13 and 23 November 1979 culminating in a leading article, ‘Open Planning for Emergencies’, which I penned and was published on 26 November 1979 (all nicely preserved in the Home Office file).

14. The Labour Way Is the Better Way: The Labour Party Manifesto 1979, reproduced in Iain Dale (ed.), Labour Party General Election Manifestos, 1900–1997 (Routledge/Politico’s, 2000). The Polaris replacement section is on p.236.

15. TNA, PRO, PREM 16/2246, ‘SECURITY: Proposed Article by Peter Hennessy on Strategic Nuclear Deterrent’, Hunt to Stowe, 12 April 1979.

16. Ibid. Jim Callaghan scribbled his comments on the minute on 13 April 1979.

17. Ibid. Hunt to Stowe, 12 April 1979.

18. Private information.

19. Samuel Brittan, Steering the Economy: The Role of the Treasury (Pelican, 1971).

20. Peter Hennessy, ‘Abrasive Touch for a Silky Machine’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 19 January 1973.

21. Peter Hennessy, ‘The Think Tank gets a man with a talent for saying what he means’, The Times, January 1975.

22. The Civil Service, Vol.1, Report of the Committee 1966–68 (HMSO, 1968).

23. TNA, PRO, PREM 16/762, Allen to Armstrong, 7 November 1974.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid. Armstrong to Wilson, 8 November 1974.

26. Ibid. Wilson’s scribble is undated.

27. Ibid., Armstrong to Allen, 8 November 1974.

28. Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (Secker and Warburg, 1989), p.xvii.

29. One Hundred Years of Secrecy.

30. TNA, PRO, PREM 16/762, Hennessy to Haines, 8 December 1974.

31. Ibid., Haines to Armstrong, 12 December 1974.

32. Ibid. Armstrong to Haines, 13 December 1974.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid., Haines to Hennessy, 17 December 1974.

35. TNA, PRO, PREM 16/1858, ‘Peter Hennessey’, Stowe to Callaghan, 4 July 1978.

36. Ibid. Callaghan’s comments are undated but Ken Stowe receives the minute back on 10 July 1978.

37. Frank Field, ‘Killing a Commitment: The Cabinet v The Children’, New Society, 17 June 1976.

38. TNA, PRO, PREM 16/1113, ‘SECURITY: Leak of an Article in The Times on Child Benefit Rates: Sir Douglas Allen’s Report; Proposal for Privy Councillors to examine the security of Cabinet documents’. See also PREM16/1449, ‘SECURITY: Leak of Cabinet Information on the Child benefit Scheme: Article in New Society magazine, 17 June 1976; reports by Metropolitan Police; Committee Privy Councillors (Chairman: Lord Houghton of Sowerby) on Security of Cabinet Documents; II’, ‘Child Benefit Leak – Report by Sir Douglas Allen’, undated.

39. Frank Field speaking on One Hundred Years of Secrecy.

40. Bernard Donoughue, Downing Street Diary Volume Two: With James Callaghan in No. 10 (Jonathan Cape, 2008), p.61.

41. Hennessy, The Prime Minister, p.451.

42. TNA, PRO, PREM 16/1856, ‘Security. Disclosure of Official Information: Franks and Younger Reports on Security and Privacy; Implementation of Reports by the Faulks and Phillimore Committees; Reform of Official Secrets Act; Official Information Bill; Part 5’.

43. TNA, PRO, PREM 19/593, ‘SECURITY, Leaks about Civil Contingencies Unit (CCU) to Peter Hennessy of The Times’; investigation. Armstrong to Whitmore, 14 November 1980.

44. Ibid.

45. Peter Hennessy, ‘Echoes of the General Strike in hardliners’ plan: Cabinet split on use of civilian volunteers during stoppages’, The Times, 19 November 1980.

46. TNA, PRO, PREM 19/593, Armstrong to Whitemore 19 November 1980, Whitmore to Thatcher 20 November 1980.

47. TNA, PRO, PREM 19/953, Payne and Stevens to Armstrong, 9 February 1981.

48. Ibid. Armstrong to Bancroft, 10 February 1981.

49. Ibid. Bancroft to Armstrong, 19 February 1981.

50. House of Lords, Official Report, 17 January 2012, col. 534.

51. Ibid., col. 537.

CONCLUSION

1. House of Lords, Official Report, 8 September 2011, col.403.

2. Quoted in Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, ‘That Used to be Us’: What Went Wrong with America – and How It Can Come Back (Little Brown, 2011), p.328.

3. Michael Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience (Hurst, 2008), p.vii.

4. Michael Howard, ‘The Transformation of Strategy’, RUSI Journal, August-September 2011, Vol.156, No.4, p.16.

5. John Rentoul, Tony Blair: Prime Minister (Little Brown, 2001), pp.526–7.

6. A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The National Security Strategy (Stationery Office, October 2010), pp.9–10.

7. Rt Hon. William Hague, MP, ‘The Best Diplomatic Service in the World: Strengthening the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as an Institution’, Locarno Rooms, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 8 September 2011.

8. Sam Coates, ‘Voters back veto as coalition is put to the test: Angry Clegg raises danger of ‘pygmy’ Britain’, The Times, 12 December 2011.

9. He has used the line more than once in conversation with the author.

10. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Second edn (OUP, 1968), p.14. The OED takes as its source Pappus Alexandr., Collectio, lib viii, prop 10, ξ xi (ed. Hulsch, Berlin, 1878).

11. Antony Jay (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations (OUP, 1996), p.185.

12. Quoted in David Hannay, The Quest for a Role (I.B. Tauris, 2012 forthcoming).

13. Conversation with Lord Waldegrave of North Hill, 27 July 2011.

14. The Disturbances in Brixton, Cmnd 8427 (HMSO, 1981); see also: After the Riots: The Final Report of the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel (Stationery Office, 2012)

15. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/datasets-and-tables/data-selector. html?cdid=IHXW+dataset=bb+table-id= 15.

16. Jonathan Sacks, ‘We’ve been here before. And there is a way back’, The Times, 12 August 2011.

17. Howard Jacobson, ‘They may be criminals, but we’re the ones who have created them’, Independent, 13 August 2011.

18. Ibid.

19. Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (Pimlico, 2001), pp.313–14; TNA, PRO, PREM 19/484, ‘HOME AFFAIRS. Civil disorder: disturbances in Brixton, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester and London districts…’

20. Simon Russell Beale, ‘The Symphony: Beethoven and Beyond’, BBC4, 10 November 2011.

21. A. H. Halsey and Josephine Webb (eds), Twentieth Century British Social Trends (Macmillan, 2000), pp.226–7.

22. House of Commons, Official Report, 17 March 1914.

23. Jeremy Greenstock, ‘Freedom, Order and Shifting Sands’, St Michael and St George Lecture, Locarno Rooms, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 22 June 2011.

24. Nick Curtis, ‘Strong sentiments’, Evening Standard, 15 September 2011.

25. Avner Offer, The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950 (OUP, 2006); Avner Offer, Rachel Pechey, Stanley Ulijaszek, ‘Obesity under Affluence Varies by Welfare Regimes: The Effect of Fast Food, Insecurity, and Equality’, Economics and Human Biology, Vol.8, No.3, December 2010.

26. Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, first published 1924 (Penguin, 1979), p.318.

27. Ibid., p.25.

28. Linda Gottfredson, ‘Intelligence’, New Scientist, 2 July 2011, p.iv of special supplement.

29. George Steiner, My Unwritten Books (Weidenfeld, 2008), ‘School Terms’, p.122.

30. Quoted in George Lukacs, The Future of History, p.26.

31. William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1, line 76.

32. Alan Judd, Uncommon Enemy (Simon and Schuster, 2012), p.150.